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Top 100 Goalies of All-Time
In our annual Collector's Edition, we countdown down the Top 100 goalies of all-time and tell the story of each. It's 140 pages packed with everything about the game's best masked men.
46. SERGEI BOBROVSKY
BORN Sept. 20, 1988, Novokuznetsk, USSR NHL CAREER 2010-present TEAMS Phi, Clb STATS 218-129-36, 2.44 GAA, .920 SP, 24 SO ALL-STAR 2 (First-2) TROPHIES 2 (Vezina-2) IT’S BAD ENOUGH TO trade a Vezina Trophy winner. The knife blade slides deeper when it’s a two-time Vezina winner. And the infamous Sergei Bobrovsky deal, which occurred at the 2012 draft, is all the more devastating considering it was the goalie-starved Philadelphia Flyers who had ‘Bob’ and let him slip away to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The three draft picks acquired for 23-year-old Bobrovsky became Anthony Stolarz, Taylor Leier and Justin Auger, who have combined for 64 NHL games. But teasing the Flyers for the transaction is a bit of revisionist history. Bobrovsky posted a .915 save percentage in 54 games as a rookie but…
21. TINY THOMPSON
BORN May 31, 1903, Sandon, B.C NHL CAREER 1928-40 TEAMS Bos, Det STATS 284-194-75, 2.07 GAA, 81 SO ALL-STAR 4 (First-2, Second-2) TROPHIES 4 (Vezina-4) STANLEY CUPS 1 WE’RE NOT SURE what label they gave to guys like Cecil ‘Tiny’ Thompson back in the day, but there’s little doubt he was a rink rat. As a child he would position himself behind the net of the Calgary Tigers to study the movements of his idol Charlie Reid. Following his NHL playing days, he spent 30 years as a scout. Thompson was at home in a hockey rink. Or a baseball diamond, a pastime that would serve him well as a goaltender. Prior to Thompson’s arrival in the late 1920s, NHL goalies rarely, if ever, actually made saves by catching the puck. But…
37. CHUCK RAYNER
BORN Aug. 11, 1920, Sutherland, Sask. NHL CAREER 1940-53 TEAMS NYA, Bro, NYR STATS 138-207-78, 3.03 GAA, 25 SO ALL-STAR 3 (Second-3) TROPHIES 1 (Hart-1) CHUCK RAYNER WAS the type of goaltender who couldn’t be contained. An excellent skater, he had a dream to score a goal himself and was known for stickhandling up the ice with the puck. Even when he was in the crease, Rayner was proactive. Johnny Bower credited Rayner with teaching him how to pokecheck. As the Hart Trophy winner in 1950, he became just the second netminder to win the league’s MVP (Roy Worters was the first) and to this day remains one of only seven stoppers to earn the accolade. Rayner was a star in junior, helping the Kenora Thistles get to the 1940 Memorial Cup, where…
THE VERY CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR GUYS
HEY, SOMEBODY HAD TO finish 101st on this list. But this is just too good. Is Kari Lehtonen finishing one spot out of the top 100 NHL goalies of all-time not the most Kari Lehtonen thing ever? Wait, it gets better. Guess who finished No. 102? Tommy Salo, that’s who. You can’t make this stuff up. First, some perspective. Being one of the 786 men who have stood in an NHL goal crease for at least one regular-season game is an enormous accomplishment, one that puts the occupant in the 99.999th percentile of those who have strapped on goalie pads. And to be in the top 15 percent of the best goaltenders the world has ever seen is an even more monumental feat. And really, Lehtonen would actually have the last…
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